I'm no expert on Twitter or this whole social media malarkey, but by my limited understanding this can't go well for the Pope? People look for tweets that mention specific users, as well as reading tweets actually by the person, but that mechanism will get completely swamped by anyone with an axe to grind (and there are plenty with axes that are very big and very sharp).
Maybe there are people who owe allegiance to CyberPOPE who will filter the feed for him? Assuming it's not an impersonator. I quite like the handle too. But yeah, I can imagine it being a bit of a feeding frenzy.
It was on the BBC News; I don't think it's a fake, although they implied that it would be written by the papal staff rather than the Pope Himself (who prefers a pen).
Oh, cool. I didn't think to check the mainstream news :) I sort of assume that's the case -- I think most important people or large organisations have someone to handle the twitter (although I understand @sweden is just a random Swedish resident picked anew each week :)).
The tick in a blue circle is supposed to mean Twitter have verified his identity, too. Although I suppose there might be scope for a well-chosen background image...
Searching for mentions of @pontifex might well be swamped by nonsense and axe-grinding (it certainly seems to be at the moment) but that doesn't stop anyone reading what @pontifex has to say. So I'm not sure exactly what problem you're envisaging.
As well as providing a vehicle for the Pope getting his message to Twitter users, it also provides a clearing-house for opponents to vent. So it's valuable to people who want to find other people angry about what he just said. It's also valuable to lazy journalists wanting a quick soundbite against what the Pope just said.
My suspicion is those downsides will outweigh the upside, from the Pope's perspective.
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Although you're right, it can be hacked :)
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My suspicion is those downsides will outweigh the upside, from the Pope's perspective.
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